


Death and Paperwork

by marcelo



Category: RED (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 04:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcelo/pseuds/marcelo
Summary: An unconfirmed death, some missing paperwork, and a very inconvenient smoke plume. There are questions Cooper'd rather not ask, and people he'd rather not ask the questions to, but what choice does he have? He's just the CIA Director.





	Death and Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).



> Beta thanks to razorsmile.

``  
INTERROGATION SESSIONS KJ732100/C-3 AND KJ732100/C-4  
SUBJECTS: **XXXXXXXX** , Victoria [RED]. Ross, Sarah [RED subject(s) known associate].  
INTERROGATING OFFICER: Director William Cooper.  
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET 

`V: Do you happen to have sencha, Cooper? I rather fancy a cup.`  
DC: No, I don't.  
V: It's very relaxing, and you do look tense. You should buy some for next time.  
DC: Next time?  
V: Frank seems to have some degree of faith on you. 

`* * *`

`SR: Another cup of coffee? Please.`  
DC: You want another cup of _this_ coffee? _Our_ coffee?  
SR: I know, I know, it's awful and horrible, but Frank's switched to some organic healthy fair trade stuff that's great, definitely, but...  
DC: You miss government coffee?  
SR: A bit. But don't tell Frank, he'll make the face, and he's already sad enough.  
DC: Just tell me how this began. 

` * * *`

`V: It was in Marvin's files. As you can imagine, he kept them organized under a very particular system. After the funeral, Frank was going to burn everything right away, but Sarah wanted to go through them first. She has a lot of curiosity about Frank's life before he met her, although in my experience there's little in a man's past you can't infer from looking at their present. Men aren't terribly dynamic.`  
DC: The funeral. So Marvin Boggs' death is confirmed, then?  
V: Let's just say that North Korea's last nuclear test might have run a little ahead of schedule. And with more scientists inside the blast radius than they had planned.  
DC: Really.  
V: I don't want to disparage your work, but the CIA doesn't run everything. Most of the time it doesn't even run everything its own agents do.  
DC: Then who was running that operation? Assuming it did happen. 

`* * *`

`SR: Marvin thought it was aliens.`  
DC: Boggs thought aliens had him sabotage North Korea's nuclear program?  
SR: No, of course not, that would be silly. He thought our government had given North Korea alien technology to run tests on it, and that they were disguising them as nuclear bombs. Which, except for the aliens, sounds totally plausible.  
DC: And how did that theory lead to Nevada?  
SR: There was a hole in Marvin's files. His filing system was awful, but, come on, I've dealt with worse. There were definitely some files that were supposed to be there but weren't. He didn't keep anything like an index, well, he had one, but it was a decoy one, but you get a feeling for these things. The way the numbers jumped around, and where he kept each file, there was a hole there. 

`* * *`

`DC: Aliens and a hole in Boggs' files.`  
V: I admit it was something of a tenuous lead, but in our line of work you learn to respect the intuitions of specialists, something I very much encourage you to do. At a certain age one gets tired of the constant coming and going of different people; it would be simpler if you kept your job for as long as possible.  
DC: I bet. If Boggs' files had been compromised, that put all of you in potential danger.  
V: All of _us_ , Director Cooper. It is a very unsettling feeling, to know that an opponent had access to your deepest secrets, isn't it? 

`* * *`

`SR: Frank sure kicked your ass that time, huh?`

`* * *`

`V: In any case, Frank was still very upset about Marvin's death. He refused to move from his sniper's nest, saying he would shoot Marvin as soon as he came to visit his own grave, and not in the leg. The grieving process can be very difficult if you have a hard time decrypting your own feelings. So Sarah and I decided to let Frank process on his own time, I asked a few acquaintances about who could have stolen Marvin's files ---not that many suspects, really--- and then we went to Nevada and... made a visit to Vault 51.`  
DC: Tell me about Vault 51.  
V: The security hardware was at least four years old, the guards were too bored to keep in proper training, and the internal temperature control system was very poorly shielded. Aside from that, a rather drab place.  
DC: And how would you describe millions of dollars of property damage, ten injured soldiers, and a Level 5 classified document holding facility having to be decommissioned after the news helicopters followed the smoke plume to its location? 

`* * * `

`SR: Bo-ring. I had to be the bait again. I'm always the bait! I get it, she's the best with the sniping rifle, but I'm never going to get better if they don't let me practice, right? It's like Frank and gardening, or Marvin, and, you know, people looking at him. Things take practice. Marvin let me practice stuff. He said he felt safer if he knew where and when I was doing things with explosives. He was such a sweet man.`  
DC: And after you broke into the inner vault?  
SR: More boring. Victoria had all the fun with the soldiers and the lasers while I looked for Marvin's papers.  
DC: According to what we could recover from the remains of the security system, you were in and out in less than three minutes. 

`* * *`

`V: What can I say? That girl has a gift for paperwork.`  
DC: So that's why you recruited her for this operation.  
V: Cooper, there was more to it than that. 

`* * *`

`SR: But going out she did let me blow up the decoy car! That was cool. I feel bad about it, though, because the bazooka was heavier than I thought, and I missed the decoy car and blew up our getaway helicopter, and your people caught us. Did you really have to take us here to interrogate us? It's kind of far and. You know. Creepy.`  
DC: I feel safer when I know where you all are.  
SR: Aw, that's kinda sweet. 

`* * *`

`V: Sarah's a dear friend. Friends support each other in their endeavors, both those that come easily to us and those we find difficult. Struggling with some areas of our lives do not make us any less valuable as a person, as a friend, or as an asset. That is a lesson we can all take from Marvin's life.`  
DC: Sarah is now in an interrogation office ten doors from here, and after what she knows and has done, that's the closest she will ever get to freedom in her life. And that's if somebody doesn't get spooked about a civilian having that kind of intel and decides to take her out preemptively. I won't, but you know that's very likely to happen. Somebody will call somebody like you or me, and you know what will happen then.  
V: I shall be very cross, William.  
DC: And God knows what Moses will do, _Victoria_. I know what I would do in his place, and I don't want to be the Director of the CIA having to deal with the fallout of that shitstorm. So you see why I'm not very happy about this road trip, or about the fact that you took Sarah with you. Now I have a potential bomb in my hands, but as much as it would help me sleep _slightly_ easier, I can't let you go.  
[alarm noises. SR enters the interrogation room. The file in her hand is believed to be **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**.]  
SR: Cooper, hey. Victoria, that was so cool. I did the thing you told me with the thing and the guard, and I got the thing. Awesome.  
DC: Victoria. Again. I don't want to do this, but I can't let you go.  
V: Sit down, you silly man. Of course you can.  
[DC's phone rings.]  
V: That'll be your boss' boss, telling you to let us go.  
DC: That's impossible, my boss' boss is... Cooper here. Sir. Sir? I understand. Yes, sir.  
[explosion sound]  
DC: You can stop doing that. You're free to go.  
SR: [to someone outside the range of the surviving surveillance cameras] That's ok, Marvin! They are letting us go.  
DC: "Marvin?"  
[explosion sound]  
MB (presumably): It could be a trap.  
SR: [leaving the room] It's not a trap!  
[explosion sound]  
MB: Ok.  
V: I might have lied about a thing or two, Director Cooper.  
DC: So this file is what you were after all along. What's on it?  
V: **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.** The part the US Government knows about, at least.  
DC: That's not possible. That never happened.  
V: You're only the Director of the CIA, my dear. They don't tell you the really interesting things until you have moved a few rungs up the ladder.  
DC: If that file exists and is accurate... Tell Moses to call me before he does what I think he's going to do.  
[explosion sound]  
SR (outside the room): Sorry, that was me! My bad.  
V: I will take that under advisement. Have a good day, Director Cooper.  
DC: Yeah. I'm sure I will. 

` END OF VIDEO RECORD  
`


End file.
